ITCHY FEET TRAVELS

Okavango Delta, Botswana

May 18, 2024

Success! Three days of searching and I have found one solo traveler who is keen to go to the Okavango delta. Jules is from Montreal and has just come in from Namibia. He and I lost no time in setting off.

Some 1100 kms away in far-away Angola lies the source of the Cuito river in the Planalto highlands. The Cuito river, later joined by the Cubango river swell in the seasonal rains during the November-April wet season. And this surge of water travels down through Namibia, reaching Botswana in May, flooding the Okavango delta. The largest inland delta in the world, this is an astonishing 16,000 square kilometers. Not surprisingly, it is home to a rich diversity of wildlife and justifiably famous. And we get to see it. Woo hoo!

The single tar road from Maun is barely a half hour’s drive before we are on the bone-jarring dirt roads. More than dirt, this is mostly sand, in some places quite deep, necessitating a four-wheel drive. Around us lies bushland, a dusty yellow in the dry season, prone to bush fires. There are wooden bridges – the driver tells us that when the waters arrive, in good years, all this is under water but now we just skirt the bridges as we jolt our way toward the Mokoro station.

We are to be poled along the waters in these traditional canoes. I remember riding in a mokoro, a traditional wooden one before in Malawi. But here they are all made of fiber glass, painted to resemble wood. Despite the 16,000 square kilometers of the delta, it seems that every travel agency has their tourists brought to this single spot. There is a single file of mokoros headed into the inlet forming a traffic jam. Package central Botswana I mutter to myself.

The water is a beautiful indigo blue from the shore but a muddy brown as we glide along the top. Scattered over the top of the water are waterlilies and lily pads. Dragonflies buzz around and some insects play leapfrog on the lily pads. Oris, our poler who is a local tells us that the roots of the water lily are a part of their diet. When I ask to try some, he tells us that it takes six hours to cook down. Oh well. We shall have to make do with our packed lunch sandwiches.

In the distance is a giant hippo, mostly submerged and we give it a wide berth. We see a large pod of hippos but they are too far away to really see anything except the tips of their ears poking out of the water. There are herons and cormorants going about their business. In one spot a whole gaggle of birds are gathered on a shallow sand bank. Some have brilliant plumage that shouts under the bright sunshine.

We glide along until we reach one of the many islands. There are hundreds of islands in this vast area but all the mokoros congregate at the same spot and the tourists troop out dutifully to follow their guides for a strictly prescribed bush walk. We literally walk into each other at times.

We tramp through the dry grass, past giant termite hills and across dried up mud holes. Oris tells us that these have been dry for a couple of years although they look newer to me. They have imprints of elephant, hippos and hoofed animals. Oris identifies the mounds of dung as we break up mounds to dissect them. I learn that like cow dung in India and yak dung in Tibet, dried elephant dung too is used as fuel in these parts. It is even burned as a mosquito repellant. Oris stops and points and in the distance is a huge bull elephant. There is no herd so this might be an old bull on his own as they are sometimes. No longer able to chew tougher leaves or barks, he is limited to the softer grass at the water’s edges.

We plod on and he points again. We have surprised a small herd of zebras and a lone wildebeest. They look at us assessingly as we stand still, trying to not spook them. They soon lose interest and wander off grazing.

A brief lunch break under the trees and we head back the way we came. It is at the mokoro station that we see the large pod of hippos. They are on the opposite bank, lounging. We click away before clambering onto the safari vehicle and jolting back to town.